Everlasting Love in Comics

There are romantic pairings in comics that just seem right. That are more-or-less permanent regardless of who is writing. That are an established and essential part of the canon of a particular character or characters. That comic readers automatically think of as a couple. That comic writers who want to get "back to basics" will go through hell or high water to maintain or--if another writer has moved the characters on--to reestablish.

Superman and Lois Lane? Most (possibly excepting Lana Lang) would agree that they belong together. Superman has had other women in his life, but Lois has always been the sun he revolves around. No other woman ever really stood a chance.

Spider-Man and Mary Jane? A good couple, but not the couple. Not that there's anything wrong with their relationship, but Spidey had an equally strong bond with Gwen Stacy (and possibly with other women as well, I have no idea because I don't read Spider-Man--I just know that Gwen is often cited as his "real" true love). MJ is not the Lois to his Superman.

How do you know if a couple is "must-have"? Do you always think of the two together? Is it almost impossible to think of either party with another character? Do other attempted pairings with either tend not to stick? This is all subjective and can vary a lot depending on the reader (or the writer), but if there's a general consensus in favor of a particular relationship, you might have a must-have relationship.

What does make a must-have comic couple?

Simple tradition seems to play a big part in it. (What else would explain the whole Green Arrow/Black Canary thing?) I don't know whether Lois has been a part of the Superman mythos from his very first appearance, but she's certainly been a part of it for the last fifty or sixty years. If a hero has been connected to a particular individual and no other for years, readers are going to remember that, and keep that relationship in mind as something associated with that hero.

Similarly, the Legion of Superheroes in the sixties and seventies (and to some extent into the eighties), being a very large team with an unusually large number of female characters, had a strong tendency to "couple up" the membership--Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad, Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel, Cosmic Boy and Night Girl, Dream Girl and Star Boy--it's very hard to readjust your mind to new pairings when you've got thirty years of that in your head, and the future stories Silver Age DC was so fond of (or were they make-believe stories?) of an adult Legion just established these associations more strongly.

The characterization of the hero also seems to play a factor. Some heroes just operate better as loners, romantically speaking. Superman has Lois, but Batman has had a series of loves over the years--of course, what woman could compete with Gotham? In fact, billionaire playboys in general tend not to have a single partner; Tony Stark had Pepper Potts in the "true love he could never have" role for a while in the sixties, and she (along with late husband Happy Hogan) have made a number of appearances over the years when writers have wanted to bring Tony back to his roots, but on the whole I think that boat has sailed.

Having been created as a pair, or paired very early on, can help. Reed and Sue Richards are a must-have couple, although they might not have been if they hadn't married and had children. (IMO Sue without Reed seems to work better than Reed without Sue.)

And speaking of the Fantastic Four, apparently Ben Grimm and Alicia Masters are considered a must-have couple as well, to the point where, when one writer had separated them, marrying Alicia to Johnny Storm in an apparently-successful marriage, subsequent writers had to find a way to make Alicia available for Ben again. They did this by turning her into a Skrull--Lyja, remember?--Skrulls being as handy a plot device twenty years ago as they are today. Not every subsequent writer has felt the need to pair up Alicia and Ben, but the relationship does tend to be revived every so often.

The success of the relationship--whether it was a happy partnership--doesn't seem to be essential to whether a couple is must-have. Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne? Well, Hank as Ant-Man preceded Jan as the Wasp, but only by a short period of time, and they were partnered heroically (and, mostly, romantically) for many years. Opinion seems to vary on this couple--on the one hand, it doesn't seem to have been a very good relationship (whether or not you buy into the long-term abuse theory). On the other, there are a number of comic writers who really like to bring things back to the original status quo, and Hank and Jan have revived their relationship every so often over the years. Certainly neither has successfully established a new relationship with anybody else.

Years ago I would have called the Vision and the Scarlet Witch one of the most must-have couples in the Marvel universe, and look what happened there (or don't, it wasn't very pretty). I still maintain that they had, for a while, one of the coolest relationships in comicdom. Wanda's later romantic bond with Wonder Man, while interesting, never had the sense of permanence of her love of the Vision.

And actual separation doesn't necessarily break apart the couple--Scott Summers will always be associated with Jean Grey more than with any other woman he becomes involved with (sorry, Emma).

I'm not saying that this sort of perceived "rightness" is a good thing.

It is good to have a respect for comic history, and I'm the last one to complain about the nostalgic impulse. I'm a sucker for Golden Age reprints, and I'll at least have a look at anything bringing Golden Age characters into the present day.

But some excellent stories have involved breaking with the status quo--the whole Winter Soldier thing in Captain America, for example. And while Sharon Carter has returned as Cap's most recent love interest, this time around their pairing was not presented as either being "the only one" for the other, and there's a lot more going on with Sharon these days than simple "love interest." (Personally I still retain a fondness for Bernie Rosenthal, one of my all-time favorite "Cap women.")

And some pretty awful stories have been created in the service of bringing together a writer's (or editor's) favorite must-have couple--existing relationships broken up clumsily, existing romantic partners mischaracterized or abused, significant romantic history changed and past partners minimized or demonized (Nightwing and Starfire, anyone?).

I love the convoluted history of the comic universe--there's a richness to it that adds an extra dimension to my appreciation of the medium. But I don't believe that everything from the past needs to be preserved. I don't believe that, at the end of the story arc, all things need to return to "normal." But I also don't favor change for its own sake, simply to shake things up--if there's no narrative benefit to it, why do it? *

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* It's got to be a difficult balancing act for the writers--trying to establish new and interesting directions for a book while still retaining whatever it is that defines the book's identity. (I know I wouldn't want the job.) If a major change is to be made--if something is taken away--you need to give the reader something of equivalent value and interest to replace it. For example, taking away Captain America, but only after providing a strong supporting cast that can carry the book for a while.